“Mrs. King,” I said, trying to stay cool and even. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” she said. She kept finding new cuts on my arms. She’d shake her head in disapproval as she squeezed out more disinfectant on her cotton ball.
“Tell me about your family.”
She looked up at me for a moment, then went back to her work. “What do you want to know about them?”
“I know you had two other children. I saw them that first day I was here, when I was a police officer. They were in the backyard with you.”
“I remember, yes.”
“When I came back here the other day, the day we had the chocolate cake…”
I paused for a moment, like a man taking a deep breath before going underwater.
“You told me a couple of very sad things,” I said. “You said that your daughter was gone, first of all…”
“The drugs, yes. The drugs took my Naima from me.”
“I’m very sorry. But as far as your other son goes, I think you said he was homeless?”
“He’s been away for a long time, yes. It wasn’t long after Darryl went to prison. With him gone and no other man in the house… Tremont didn’t have anybody to look up to.”
“Tremont,” I said. “That’s right. That was his name. I think my partner asked him if he liked being on summer vacation. Then he went over and sat on the swing you had hanging from that tree…”
“Darryl was always hard on his little brother. But I know he loved him. He looked after him, because all the other kids would tease him. He was a little different.”
“How was he different?”
“He was just more sensitive than other children. He didn’t talk a whole lot. Whenever he’d get picked on, Darryl would be there to make things right.”
To make things right. Those same words yet again.
“How did he make things right?” I said.
“He’d go after any of those kids who picked on Tremont. Didn’t matter how big they were. Darryl wasn’t that big himself, but he was strong. He worked out all the time.”
“Yes,” I said, remembering that weight bench in the backyard. “But what else would he do to make things right?”
“Tremont was always running off somewhere. I’d be worried sick because he’d be out at all hours of the night, even though he was only fourteen years old, understand. But Darryl’d always say, ‘I got him, Mama. I’ll go find him.’ He always would. He might whip his ass a little bit on the way home, but he’d always find him.”
“Where would Tremont go when he ran away?”
“Oh, just about anywhere. Darryl would have to go all over the place to find him. But he’d always bring him home in the end.”
That’s when the question came to me. The one question I should have asked a lot sooner.
“Mrs. King, did Darryl ever go looking for Tremont at the train station?”
“No, Tremont knew he wasn’t allowed to go there.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s way down by the river,” she said. “That’s too far away for a fourteen-year-old boy to be going all by himself. And besides…”
I took her hands then. I made her stop her work and I sat there holding her hands and looking into her eyes.
“Besides what?” I said. “Why was he not allowed to go to the train station?”
“Because it was a bad place, Alex. People sold drugs in that park in front of the station, and men would go down there if they were looking for young boys.”
“If he was there…”
“He loved his trains, Tremont did. Ever since he was little. But he knew he wasn’t supposed to go to that place.”
“I’ll ask you again,” I said, holding her hands tighter. “The things that went on at that station… If Tremont was there, is it possible that’s why?”
She looked away.
“Mrs. King, please answer me, no matter how painful this might be. It’s important.”
“If he was,” she said, “then I wasn’t able to see it. I’m ashamed to say that now, but it’s true. I just couldn’t imagine my boy doing something like that.”
“What about Darryl? Did he know?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe that’s why he was so hard on him.”
“As far as I know, Darryl never said anything about this to the police. Not when the detective was questioning him.”
“I don’t suppose that’s surprising,” she said. “I don’t suppose he’d be real proud to tell people why he was down at the station, if he was looking for his brother, and thought that he was…”
“Is it possible,” I said, thinking here was where I had to choose my words carefully, “that Darryl may have thought he was protecting Tremont when he confessed to that crime?”
“If he really confessed, then yes, I’d say that’s the most likely reason he’d do something so foolish. If he came back home and got his hands on Tremont, and asked him if he was down at that station on the same day that woman was murdered, and Tremont said yes, he was… Then by the time those police showed up to arrest Darryl, I can see him having it in his head that they were going to send somebody away, no matter what, so it should be him instead of his brother. I can see that all day, yes.”
No mention of taking the diamond bracelet while he happened to be there, I thought. No mention of the possibility that Tremont may have been involved in the murder of Elana Paige.
But no, I can’t even ask her this. I can’t say the words out loud, not in this kitchen.
“I’ll tell you this,” she said. “When Darryl got taken away to prison, sometime I’d think to myself, there’s a reason for this, Jamilah. In your darkest hour, this is a small blessing, that it’s Darryl in that prison instead of Tremont. Because Darryl’s a strong boy. Real strong. While Tremont wouldn’t last a day in that place. Not one single day. I know that sounds like a bad way to see it.”
“You never said anything about this before,” I said. “When you told me that you knew Darryl was innocent…”
“I didn’t say anything about Darryl saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, no. Or why he might have said it. Because I don’t care about that. I only care about the fact that neither of my two boys would kill anybody.”
“Okay, I understand. But tell me more about what happened to Tremont after Darryl went to prison. You said he ran away for good?”
“Yes, because Darryl wasn’t here anymore to go fetch him. Tremont just ran away and he never came back.”
“You never heard from him?”
“Oh, he’d call me sometimes. Those first few years, anyway. I’d wire him some money sometimes, but he always said he was fine. He said he was riding the rails, like he always wanted to. He got hooked up with some people who would hitch rides on freight trains, go all over the place, do some work if they could find it, or else just panhandle. Then hitch another freight train and do it all over again. I guess they’ve got this whole way of life.”
“Like hobos, you mean. Like modern-day hobos.”
“Doesn’t sound like any kind of life to me. But he said he was finally happy, riding the freight trains and never knowing where he’d end up next.”
She stopped. She finally took her hands from mine. She smoothed her dress over her knees and raised her head high.
“It was something else I just had to accept, Alex. One boy in prison, the other a homeless wanderer out on a freight train somewhere. My daughter in a grave. None of them going to school. None of them sleeping in their room at night.”
“When’s the last time you heard from Tremont?”
“It’s been a long time. I couldn’t even tell you if he’s alive or dead right now. I know a mother’s supposed to know such things. I’m supposed to feel if he’s still out there somewhere, but I guess I’m not feeling much of anything anymore.”
“But when you did hear from him,” I said, already dreading the answer, “you say he’d be in a new place every time?”